Energy
Electricity production
New power plants blamed for turning Mekong River blue
The Mekong River has turned a bright and striking blue, but this eye-catching sight has raised concerns about the environment and the livelihoods of those living in the region. The Mekong runs for nearly 3,100 miles and flows through China, Laos, Burma, Thailand and Cambodia, filling a ...
Simon Roughneen
Locals wary as Laos powers ahead with hydroelectric goals
With one palm on his shaven head, Phra Khamsee Manivong stares at a backhoe levelling dunes of compacted mud by his temple. All around the ornate red and gold edifice, crumbled remnants of a boundary wall tangle with fresh creepers. It has been 17 months since ...
Tan Hui Yee
Dam testing in China to affect eight Mekong River provinces
Eight provinces along the Mekong River have been told to brace themselves for a dip in water levels between Jan 1-4 as tests at Jinghong hydroelectric power station in China’s Yunnan province are expected decrease of water outflows. According to the Office of National Water Resources ...
Nam Ou River hydropower project in Laos starts 2nd phase operation
A ceremony to start the first power generation unit of Nam Ou River Cascade Hydropower Project’s second phase was held on Thursday, in Luang Prabang, some 220 km north of the Lao capital Vientiane. Lao Minister of Energy and Mines and President of the Laos-China Friendship ...
mingmei
Drought, dams may lead to death of Mekong
The livelihood of millions of people in China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam will be affected as drought and newly-built dams impede the Mekong River’s flow, drying up segments of the once fast-flowing river. Observers predict that these two factors may lead to the death of ...
Azman Hamid, Patrick Sennyah, Roy Goh
Electricity consumption in Mekong delta rises
Electricity consumption in the Mekong delta averagely rises by 10.7 percent during 2010-2018, according to a seminar organized by GreenID Company and the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations in the Mekong delta City of Can Tho yesterday. Furthermore, electricity consumption in the region is forecast ...
Tuan Quang
Vietnam Utility Dares Mekong Devastation
Inertia and the inherent tone-deafness of an authoritarian regime have set Vietnam on a course toward economic and political disaster. It is not too late, however, for the ruling party’s top leaders, the Politburo, to disavow support for state-owned PetroVietnam’s plans to build a huge ...
David Brown
Vietnam to stop licensing large-scale solar projects
In a newly published policy document, Hanoi has urged regional governments and the country’s state-run utility, EVN, to suspend authorizations for new solar parks until further notice. Around 8.93 GW of utility-scale solar capacity is already approved for development in Vietnam, according to the Ministry ...
Emiliano Bellini
Cambodia looks to hydropower, but…
Along with most Southeast Asian countries, Cambodia’s electricity consumption over the past decade has skyrocketed. In a report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), electricity consumption in Cambodia has been growing rapidly, averaging 20 percent growth per annum since 2010. This rate continues ...
ASEAN’s renewable energy challenges
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has set an ambitious target of securing 23 percent of its primary energy from renewable sources by 2025 as energy demand in the region is expected to grow by 50 percent. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency ...